Let’s talk about labour.
Magazines and baby-books tend to sweet-talk labour and encourage women
to write a ‘birth plan’ as though they’re going on holiday. What you’re not
told is that childbirth is unpredictable, hard work (that’s why they call it
labour) and that you need to prepare your mind, body and soul for this marathon
event in your life. (P.S. ‘birth plans’ fly out the window the minute you step into
a maternity unit).
What can you do to prepare for labour and birth?
Get your body ready. There’s a reason why mother nature restricts childbearing years to
between menarche and menopause. A younger woman is naturally fit and healthy –
not only to carry a pregnancy through to 40 weeks, but also so that she has the
physical strength to push her baby through the birth canal, breastfeed and survive to rear her child.
Get your mind ready. Tokophobia is the fear of giving birth. Most women are afraid of
labour. They will tell you that they don’t like hospitals, needles and drips
and the smell of disinfectant. Their senses ring alarm bells. Hospitals are a place
of pain and suffering. Fear blocks happiness hormones, and this anxiety can
interfere with labour by slowing down contractions. Side-step these anxieties
by bringing a birth-partner (a doula, girl-friend or your baby’s father)
establishing a trusting relationship with your doctor or midwife, and going on
the ‘hospital tour’ when booking your bed so that you’re familiar with the
hospital setting, and you’ve met some of the staff.
Get your soul ready. Keep telling yourself “I can do this”. You, your spouse and your
baby are unique. You can’t anticipate what your birthing experience is going to
be like – even if you have been through it before. Expect the unexpected. Live,
breathe, move the moment. Connect with your baby. Pray. Sing. Humm. Moan. Move.
This will help your body release endorphins – nature’s natural morphine – that
sends you into another realm and separates you from fear. These hormones make
you strong and help you to work with, and not against, your contractions.
Connect with your baby who sleeps while you’re in labour, trusting you, waiting
like an astronaut to catapult into this world.
This is how women have been giving birth for eons. This is how
women who don’t have sophisticated medical services give birth. This is how
midwives used to deliver babies in their communities. I remember doing
voluntary work during my holidays as a student midwife in a little clinic in
the heart of a township. The roads were mud when it rained, the tin shacks freezing
in winter and burning hot in summer. Some of the better houses were made from
red brick with plain cement floors. They were meticulously clean and smelt of
paraffin, lifebuoy soap and candlewax. Tables were covered with newspaper and
shelves decorated with newspaper cut into patterns. Invariably there was a
gaggle of women chatting and drinking tea in the tiny kitchen with a menagerie
of children running around the yard when Sister Brenda and I arrived with our
little suitcase of ‘goodies’ to deliver the baby.
Many years later when I ran a series of workshops for teachers for
the Department of Education on how to talk to teenagers about sex, one of the
ice-breakers was to get the teachers to share what they were told where babies
came from as children. While some said believed that babies came from
aeroplanes, many had the impression that babies were brought by the midwife in
a little suitcase!
Trust your instincts. They’re stronger than you realise.
You are a creature of the universe, descended from millions of years of genetic
and epigenetic inheritance, cut and spliced to fit into 23 pairs of
chromosomes. You’re passing these onto the next generation. Be proud. Walk
tall. You CAN do this!
